


Sea Crickets

by BannedBloodOranges



Category: Muppet Treasure Island (1996), Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Affected Sanity, Bloodlust, Deal With the Devil, Drowning, Fae folk, Goldlust, Horror Elements, Long John Silver is a bastard (but you already knew that), M/M, Manipulation, Maybe - Freeform, Mermaids, Merpirates, Never Trust The Fae Folk, Pacts, Part 2 to follow, Repressed Feelings, Secrets, Seduction, Sirens, alternative universe, he's worse as a fish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 06:26:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19718053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BannedBloodOranges/pseuds/BannedBloodOranges
Summary: The first thing that came with the tide was the blood.A depleted supply of fish in an ancient bay leads to Jim Hawkins making a deal with a most unusual creature.





	Sea Crickets

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing, non-profit fun only.
> 
> Characterisations and situations based on Muppet Treasure Island. Muppet characters are adapted into human roles, and play major parts, especially Garrett (Gonzo) and Richard (Rizzo.) 
> 
> I never thought I would finish this.

_Way out of reach and out of my depth_  
_I wear your love like a skin_  
_That hurts when anyone touches me_  
_Where you left me down for once and for all_  
_Out of the reach of our sea_

 _You promised me gloves from the skins of the fishes_  
_The smile of a dolphin for a ring in my hands_  
_But you left me with nothing but a mouthful of air_  
_And promises wide as the ocean_

 _You brought me up and out of the water_  
_You brought me up to forget_  
_I had ever been, I could ever breathe_  
_In the water under your heart_

 **You Brought Me Up** ,Méav Ní Mhaolchatha

* * *

Jim toddled across the stones on his five-year feet, reaching for an enormous seashell with an opal sheen in the early summer sun, and into the sea he went, up to his tiny knees, the shell heavy in his hands. Across the brazenly blue sky, Jim saw a flock of fishing boats, with crude nets and oars. His father was there amongst the men, standing tall with his net and spear in hand, and upon seeing Jim, cried out in greeting. Jim called back, lifting the seashell for him to see.

_He does not remember. Sometimes he does, sometimes he does not, but there is something sparkling upon the broad width of his father’s neck._

The wind changed. The gulls began to holler, to tear at each other to get away. There were exclaims from the men, confused murmurs moving swift to panic as around them the sea stirred and rolled, as if alive, whilst enormous shapes, like sharks, shimmered beneath the blue.

Firm female hands tugged Jim from the tide, landing him painfully on his rump. There were people swarming about him, fishermen and fishwives bellowing out to each other, lifeboats being boarded, the air peppered with gunfire and prayers. The boats were rocking now, the full nets seized and torn beyond repair, scores of silver finned fishes flailing uselessly back into the water.

Between the gathered legs, Jim saw a tail. It lashed from the water, dew jewelled in black and red. It thumped against his father’s boat, almost breaking it in two, splintering the rudder. It emerged again, as potent and poisonous as a dart frog, and as it did, clawed hands reached from the depths and grabbed at a sobbing sailor. A spear caught the groping paw, slicing blood as a terrible gull shriek shook the sea.

Jim saw his father, the bold gold of his hair and skin blazing in the sun, the spear aloft. Jim saw him rise it again, the pendant swinging on his neck, a catch in the light. The tail emerged again, seeing to sweep him off into the churning waves before his father twisted the spear and plunged it deep into its side. There came a howl of agony, a scream so alien that Jim ducked down, covering his ears, the awful print of it a constant on his brain, but when he looked again, his father was nowhere to be seen.

The first thing that came with the tide was the blood. It streaked along with the white breakers, red bubbling and foaming on the sand, nibbling cruel against Jim’s toes.

* * *

_Fifteen years later._

It was spring. The light had finally begun to catch up with the hours, a kinder sun emerging early and frail to light the morning. From across the bay, the sea was still and undisturbed, glugging slow into an open cavern hidden below the hang of the cliffs. Tied to the rocks was a single dinghy, bobbing in the waves, and from within the twilight of the cave, there came a sharp exclaim of triumph.

The rocks were slippery on Jim’s feet, and the light was poor, but he cast the nets again, dragging them down into the small, narrow ventures where he had seen the fat plentiful pools of fish. Once again, he dragged them up, scores of them, wiggling and flapping within the nets, and he dumped his treasure in his boat.

Satisfied, Jim pushed out his dingy, slower than before, for it groaned heavy with his catch. Unlike the nook he had discovered, the main sea billowed empty beneath him, the fish stray and scarce. He fixed his gaze on the distant shapes of his tiny village and smiled.

The light danced off a flash of silver, and Jim turned his head, only to find the dying ripples shimmering on the rockpools.

* * *

"You know how dangerous it be, Jim! Must I talk to a boy with empty ears? "

Jim used to the tirade, cut into his fish and potatoes. Richard, too busy eating, made no such comment. Garrett ate slowly, his ears open and his worried eyes on Jim.

"They've driven the fish out of our borough, near be enough killed our trade, leavin' our little ones to starve." Mrs Bluveridge, sniffed, gutting the barrels of fish with her hard, wide hands. It was a sight too rare nowadays. "No man in his right mind will ward out to them waters, as the beasts will eat us in place of their fish, and so we have no fishermen in a _fishing_ village!"

The fish were scarce, yes. The rise of attacks had prevented men from fishing in the traditional sense, and the competition between the townsfolk and the merman had depleted the food source and sent the shoals of fish elsewhere. Jim had discovered the small enclave where the vast, hidden shoals bred and met, protected from the open sea. It was a secluded area, and unique to him alone, for the underwater ways he knew were narrow and hazardous as no merman could reach it, and it only could be accessed atop the slippery rocks with his thin, tight nets.

"You alone, on that dinghy!" She had no intention of stopping. "Those devils be powerful enough to ransack a galleon, let only an old creaker like that!"

"It's alright, Ms B," Jim explained quietly. "I tracked when the mermen are active. They are mostly out at night, and never before noon. I reckoned if I fished early in the morning, I'll be safe."

It had taken him three days in total, and sharper eyes and ears, but he had recorded the dark quivers of motion beneath the waves, had written in his battered journal the times and places and coordinates where he had seen them roam, hidden to all but he.

"Might I remind ye, Jim, that it be a merpirate that took your father from us? It be why you are here in the first place, lad!"

Jim's fork went still. Richard shot a glare at the old woman.

"You know, Mrs B," Richard piped up. "No-one has ever actually seen these damn things for near on fifteen years. How do we know they are still out there?"

The skillet was rapped hard on Richard's head. 

"Don't question me, lad!" she snarled. "I'm a lot uglier and older than you, boy, and I know when it be sharks and when it be somethin' all the more nefarious."

"Got the ugly part right," Richard muttered under his breath as Mrs B marched away, returning to her fish. There was enough to feed the village for weeks and even enough to smoke and cool and sell, but Jim laid down his fork, his appetite forgotten.

Garrett touched his shoulder. Richard looked away, awkward.

* * *

The days grew warmer, the light sweeter and longer, and as spring progressed, Jim saw to his duties earlier, and with greater vivacity. Although the fear of the village meant he still worked alone, his efforts have brought in a modest profit, and the small trades began to turn, the bureaucracy of his town coming to life once again. Although they mumbled suspiciously when he approached each morn loaded with his silver finned bounty, they still took what he offered, and prayed it would last at least a while longer.

This day was hotter than any. Jim, stripped to his breeches, worked fast and hard, lowering his bounty into his longboat, and retrieving his oars, set off back to the shore. The boat was overly full and rocked dangerously. Jim stood up to keep balance, the bake of the sun drawing out a rash across his shoulders.

Jim docked his dinghy near the rock pools. From there, he would leave it in the shade of the hanging cliffs and wake his friends to aid in the moving of the “crop.”

Exhausted, Jim slumped in the shade. He stretched out his arms and listened to the pull of the tide. Richard and Garrett would still be sleeping and as far as Jim felt right now, he was tempted to join them. But his mind wandered anxiously to the fresh cold catch and the encroaching heat, and with a sigh and a curse he pulled himself up.

The sun glittered on an enormous stretch and pulse of silver scales. It drew Jim's eye like the freeze of a diamond. It shifted at his attention, slapping away in the shallows, and Jim, Jim _froze._

The tail, impossibly long, curled up into the sun, the weight and muscle of it akin to a Great White. The light caught the scales, knitted together in opal clusters, and Jim saw on each side of the mighty limb were fins. The right fin was flared out, crimped at its edges, and had the sight and sensation of rough silk. However, the left-hand fin was ragged, half missing, and a long pale scar slit from the tip of the tail to the dip of the creature's waist.

The creature - the man, if you could call it that -cracked open one green eye, and smiled sweetly, and all Jim could see was its spiked teeth.

"Why," It rumbled, in the rough accent of the old country. "A good morn to you, lad."

Jim scurried back, sharpish.

The creature clicked in amusement. It's - his - face was in shade.

"Careful now, lad," He said, gentle. "Don't slip, now."

The only knife Jim had was the piece of sharp flint he used to cut the nets. Other than that, he only had his skin, and his feet, and the short distance between his mossy stone and the sandbank. The enormous tail slapped again, idle, as if in thought. Or maybe, to get his attention.

Jim's nervous eyes adjusted to the deep shadow thrown by the sun, for all he could clearly see was the twinkle of the creature's iris.

"What..." He called out. "What do you want?"

The mershark chuckled. The tail drew back, rising clouds of underwater sandstorms. The hair on Jim's neck stood on end.

"Why, if it be so fair," He spoke lightly. "I merely want a little chat with you, lad, if you have time."

The very fact he would be given the option - at least - was laughable. Jim would have laughed too, had he been on the sand and not on the lonely rock, especially with the tail now curling long and slow around the base of the stone, the damaged fin brushing his foot. 

"Make it quick, then," He said, hurriedly, trying to stop the shake in his voice. "I have fish to gut and sell."

"And why the hurry, hm?" Came the smooth response, and the mershark slipped out of the shadow of the rockpool cavern, further into the tide, and Jim held his breath, for the face was perversely human, and could have belonged to any fit sailor in the district. Dark curls, veins of molasses in the sea, drifted past his shoulders and powerful back, and a beard, scaled with grey, framed the full mouth split with a grin. On the half man's wrists and neck sparked all forms of gold and reflected in the pupils of his lazy, hooded eyes. “Why if you have time to doze, lad, then surely - you have time to hear me, hm?”

His cheeks were hot. There was no frightened chill in the presence of the appointed monster.

“What do you want?”

“Why, a little chat, that be all,” was the conversational response. “I couldn’t help but see that trove of fish ye have there, on the man’s sand.”

“What of it?” Jim tucked himself in further. The great tail snaked further around the rock, squeezing Jim’s shrinking piece of limestone. 

“Why, I be thinkin’.” The mershark scratched his cheek with his claws. “That be so many fish, say I.”

Jim looked toward the heaving dinghy of fish, and then, back toward the mershark, who smiled further.

"There is plenty enough there for my village," Jim declared.

"Plenty, indeed," the mershark bobbed his head in agreement. "Now I be not the sort to call a lad greedy, but there be more than ye need, surely?"

"What is it to you?"

"Why, it be everythin'." He clicked in thought. An alien sound, and as far as Jim was convinced, his mother tongue. "And here I be wondering. For a two-leg like yourself, you seem awful smart. I be watching for weeks now, on and off, and I see this lad pull up all these fish, that me and my hungry brethren can barely touch."

Jim was silent. The mershark swivelled a ring on his finger, waiting.

"I don't see what that has to do with me."

"Plenty," The mershark drew close, circling in the currents. "For I see a profit to be made here. And be you in such a hurry, my lad, I'll make it brief."

The end of his tail flicked a splash of salt water toward Jim. It was almost playful.

"Give me...hm. Two-thirds of the catches you make..." He gestured lazily as if doing Jim a favour. "I will halt all attacks between my own lads and you two-legs, as long as the food keeps coming. Deal?"

Jim just stared at him. Despite his fear, a flare of anger emerged with a memory. A memory of two figures, meeting and falling away into the horizon.

"And why should I do that?" He hissed. "You're the reason the fish were driven away in the first place."

"Oh, lad!" The mershark grinned, bitter. "Why, the same could be said of you two legs, hm?"

"And what if I don't?"

A silence fell. The tail wrapped closer. The rock moaned with it.

Jim glared, his flint raised. The sun shone off his hair and matched the finery wrung around the thick, sturdy torso of the mershark.

The mershark smiled a little wider, and the human guise fell away a little, revealing pearl points in place of teeth.

The wind blew toward the houses in the distance and Jim thought of the dwindling larders, the hunger, the fear of the bay. He looked back at the creature, who raised his brows, bemused, as Jim tucked away his flint.

"Half." He said. "Half of my catch, every two weeks. We need to eat and trade. In return, you do not draw one drop of human blood, and leave us the bay during the day. Deal?"

The mershark laughed, light. In it there was music, a primal prettiness caught in the warm rumble of it. Jim jumped, for a moment, his composure lost. He was well aware of that _other_ side of the legends.

"You be a wise one, surely," he swivelled the antique ring on his finger. "And so, yes..." The tail was gone. In a rush of white water, he was there, claw nails tapping onto Jim's rock. Jim half toppled. "I trust that wager goes both ways, hm? Why, I want to see no two-legs come sundown."

"Yes," Jim struggled upright. "But if the promise is broken, all deals are off. Agreed?"

"Naturally," the mershark beamed, delighted. "Cross me heart." He tapped his claws close to Jim's shivering legs, and under his lashes, the scale green irises flickered. "And may I know the name of my new beneficiary, hm?"

Names were contracts. Jim knew that much. But with the closeness between them now, and the fish growing warm in the sun, and the manic gleam in the grin of those eyes, Jim knew he had no choice.

"Jim." Bravely, he swept his feet over the rock, landing waist high in the water. "Jim Hawkins."

"Hm." The shark slowly undulated about him. The restraint in the action spoke of his speed. _Stop thinking like that,_ he scorned himself. "Well, Master Hawkins. In your clumsy tongue, my name be John Silver, known as Long John for my troubles, it be."

"Oh?" Jim clambered onto the sand. The heat of land was a rush of comfort and confidence. "Pleasure to meet you, sir."

"Sir!" Long John rattled out a laugh. Now Jim was out of the water, he seemed far more pleasant company. "Heh. What a lark, lad. No. Being such associates as we now are, ye may call me Long John, as we are now friends, truly."

Unsure about that, Jim turned toward the boat. He could feel the pressure of Long John's gaze, and as requested, he hauled out a generous heap of fish and began delivering it onto their shared rock.

"My, my," the sharkman whispered, awed. "What a gent ye be, lad."

* * *

"You been workin' hard, lad?" Ms B never missed a trick. The fading light outside made the grubby windows of the Benbow glow. Jim shrugged, tiredness sunk in his bones, and slinked past her to take his seat at the table.

"Where's Richard and Garrett?" He asked, taking a swig of his beer. It was watery and the yeast stung his eyes, but anything to replace the salt on his lips.

"Already eaten," Ms B's heavy body filled out the room. She took out the plate of fish and potatoes. "You need to be here earlier, boy. Else it'll spoil."

"Of course," Jim rubbed the space between his eyes. "Sorry."

"Hm." She clattered the plate in front of him and taking her chair by the window, lit her pipe. Jim tucked in, ravenous.

"Richard was down by the boatyard, again," she tapped her ashes on her knee. "Lookin' for an apprenticeship, mind. Garrett lookin' to sail." She sniffed. "Admiral Smollett was askin' after you, again."

"Oh?" Jim wiped his mouth. He was expecting the bite of Mrs B's tongue for his manners, but she just watched him, steadily, smoke curling from the sides of her jowls. "What did he say?"

"That he expects you to join his crew come midsummer," She groaned, pulling her arthritic leg up on the chair opposite. Jim's gaze, by habit, fell on the locket tied around her neck. "I said you would."

Jim looked past her, through the window, to the moon on the bay. The horizon shivered beyond that, through the haze of the evening mist.

Jim balled his fists beneath the table.

"We'll see," he said plainly and turned back to his dinner.

* * *

The next two weeks brought the encroach of spring storms. The rock was slacked with rain and inside his fishing cavern, Jim worked tirelessly, his bare feet braced on either side of the rock among the bubbling waters.

It was early. The bay was flat and empty, the grey sky stretched over the neighbouring cliffs. Rain plinked the sea in chilly, delicate drops.

There was no sign of the mershark.

In the old pub, he had found the ancient blood that backed their community, huddled together in ale and dim candlelight, observing him gravely within the caves of their faces. Jim was wise enough not to tell the young, frightened boys, not Ms B, nor his two best friends, not even kind Admiral Smollett. (For all his kindness, he was also rational, and no rational man would believe him.) The elders had taken his word without a murmur, gravel voices joining together in the creak of their choral promise. They would say it was safe to crew the bay in daylight hours, save the one day of the fortnight – the day the mersharks took their share.

One had said - Patrice, the eldest -how he had looked like his father.

Jim shoved his dinghy onto the shore. The sun was cautioned behind the clouds, so the sweat on his back was cold.

A grand splash rose from the depths and soaked him right through.

Sat up against the rocks was Long John Silver, his tail thundering in the tide. A blinding grin was on his face. Jim shook the salt from his hair.

"My, my," he larked. "Here comes the man of his word."

"Good morning." Jim pulled up his nets; Silver eyed them, warily measuring what was in them to what was left on the boat. Jim had no worries; he was boringly fair. "I've got your half, as promised."

“Leave it there, lad.” Silver gestured to the limestone rock. “When ye be gone, I’ll call my lads, and we’ll have a picnic, yes.”

Jim laid them on the rock. All reason fled Silver’s face, and with blackening of his eyes, he seized a carp and gnashed out the guts with his teeth. Jim stumbled back a few steps, but in place of his disgust, instead there was birthed a curiosity, and as the mershark licked his claws clean he caught, by accident, the hovering of Jim’s gaze, and the boy turned away, quickly.

“I didn’t realise you were so hungry,” he made a show of sorting out the spare nets. Something not quite terror prickled his back.

“Aye.” The water stirred with his movement. “The shortage has been hard on both of us, lad.”

“Well.” Jim pushed his boat further up the beach. He could still sense the mershark watching him. “For us and merpirates both, I guess.”

Silver clicked in bemusement.

“What a name for us!” He struck his tail in the waves. The spray wet Jim’s neck, and he turned, part duty, part fascination, mostly irritation. “Why, I have known many a pirate, lad.” He flopped on his back, picking his teeth with a fishbone. "Would say I be more honourable than them, mark me. Why, that be hurtful."

“It’s what they call you at the village,” Jim replied, sharp. “I think its because you’ve got a habit of eating people and sinking fishing boats, but what do I know?”

“Hah!” The mershark held up his hands. “I would argue it go both ways, the blood, but surely, ye have made up your mind, hm?”

He reached for another fish, as casually as reaching for an apple. He ate it lazily, more like a man than a monster. Jim picked up his nets, gathered them in his arms, and untied the rope before a prickle rose in his throat, and he dropped it again and looked back.

The mershark lay back in the sun, his eyes closed, blood on his lips. The air thrummed with a deep, rich burr, and Jim realised it was Silver, humming to himself. His tail swayed, up and down, as if in time to his tune. Although it was concealed by the reflected murk of the water, the scales shimmered pretty in the grey.

Jim approached, carefully, circling the rock where the mershark was spread, and up close, he discreetly glanced at the tail, at the pull and power in it, and the frilled belt that connected it to the human half, and he wondered, _how_. There were no legs sheathed in that gigantic limb of scale and speed, but pure slick brawn, and Jim wondered, if he touched it, whether it would be as smooth and cold as the fish skin. 

“Hmm…” Silver chortled, and rolled over, revealing his muscular back, and his tail reared from the shallows, the caudal fin curling inward, into Jim, and the sight took his breath away.

“I’ve never…” Jim murmured. Silver raised his eyebrows. “I’ve never seen one of your kind, so close before.”

“No?” Silver laid his tail back into the sands. “But you claim to know so much about us, hm?”

Jim had no answer to that.

“You can speak our language,” He laid on his belly on the rock. It was early, and cold, and there was no sun to dry out the fish, and despite himself, he was intrigued.

“I’ve been here a long time, lad,” Silver said, matter of fact. “When you’ve lived as long as me lad, you learn a few things.”

“You’ve lived long, have you?”

"Hm? Of course, lad." He lifted one jewelled hand out of the water and reached for yet another fish. Jim wondered about his so-called brethren but said nothing. "I be older than these rocks, say I, and older than all my clan."

Jim wasn’t sure if he believed him.

"I think I heard your first language when I was a child," Jim reached inside his bag. There was a sudden stillness in Silver, bleeding of shark black in his eye, but Jim pulled out an apple and took a bite. “It sounded like clicking. Like crickets, almost.”

“Sea crickets!” Silver swiped the apple clean from Jim’s hand, and alternating between his third fish, took a hearty _crunch_ of it. “Now there be a tale, lad.”

“Yes.” Jim was aware, suddenly, of the closing distance between them (Long John had a clear chance at that apple) and he pulled back, clearing his throat. “But I need to be going, now.”

"That be a shame, lad." Strange enough, it sounded like it too. "It be a novelty to share fish and fruit with a two-leg, especially one who be full of _questions.”_

“No more then anybody else,” Jim declared, testily. (His cheeks burnt none the same.) “I’ll see you again in two weeks, Mr Silver.”

“Aye, two weeks from today.” The mershark nodded civilly. “Let’s not forget, now. A heavy price rests on this, lad.”

“I am well aware of the price,” Jim did the ties up on his shirt. He hadn’t noticed how cold he had become, lurking close to the rockpools with the bathing mershark. “And my name is Jim, Long John. You’ve called me “lad” too many times now.”

Silver’s top lip peeled back into a sneer.

Jim, chilly and irritated, felt passingly bold.

“As we are business associates now…” He hauled the rope over his shoulder. “We should address ourselves by our names, yes?”

“Hm.” The mershark scratched his beard, eating Jim with his eyes. “Fine. I be reasonable, and you be a boy of spirit. So, two weeks…” He chortled and clicked like a cricket. “Jim- _Lad.”_

* * *

The bay was old, born from the natural formation of the cliffs closing in tight, and had existed long before the village had lain their bricks on the hillside. Stoneless licks of sand ran against the clear water, and in the shallows, large rocks slept beneath the white tides. According to the elders, they had gouged the bottom of ships for centuries.

As a child, Jim had known it to be the place where the men had gathered struggling swarms of fish, no matter the season, and he remembered a fireside story of how the waves were enchanted with old powers long before the advent of Christendom, but after the dream of his father's death such stories faltered and the fish became less and the blue oasis more dangerous.

Still, maybe it was the old powers pulling him down to the breakers, for there he had found a pleasantly isolated spot, if he remained on the land, and one morning he took sharp sticks found beneath the spindle trees and lighting a fire, cooked his fish crispy and brown beneath the midday sun.

"What may I ask?" Silver, with his tail hidden, could look so much like any sailor. Gold hoops ornamented his long ears. Long John, Jim thought, must bear a similarity to the common magpie. "Are ye doin' to that fine fish, lad?"

"Cooking it." The exchange had been merely days away. The bay was theirs during the day, that was the agreement, but it was hardly like Jim could forbid the mersharks entirely if they weren't violent. But the only mershark Jim had seen so far was Silver. "It makes it tasty."

"Destroys it, more like," Silver wrinkled his nose, positively disgusted. "Why burn all that soft, tender skin? Why, to see you commit such sacrilege, Jim-Lad, I be willin' to go back on my promise."

In response, Jim retrieved one of his thoroughly "burnt" fish and begun to eat it gingerly. He'd salted the skin beforehand, and it was delicious, the scent and taste filling him right up. Silver tutted and clicked, the splash of his hidden tail an accompaniment to his disapproval.

Jim stabbed the stick back into the sand, keeping eye contact steady with Silver, and reached for another.

"Hm." Silver clacked his black tongue against his fangs. "Hm. Heh, hm."

Jim tested the heat of the flesh against his lips; warm it was, and succulent too. His teeth sunk in through the charcoal skin, meeting the meat beneath, and SIlver made an audible sound.

"What?" Jim swallowed too quickly, hacking into his palm. "For god's sake, what is it?"

"Hmm..." Silver was prone, rolling his head in his forearms. "Maybe I be a touch overhasty, Jim-Lad. Why, it does look good, now."

"Yes," Jim weighed the distance between his fish and SIlver's flexing claws. "As I said, it's tasty."

"But how could I possibly know?" wheedled Silver, rolling on his back. The sun scattered light on the dewdrops caught on his chest, clung to the hair. Jim's throat became suddenly dry, and he tucked the stick back into the sand. "Why, it be a crime, lad. To know that I, a poor starvin’ beast of the sea, and you, a two-leg, not sharin' your cuisine, now."

"I..." Jim was at a loss for words. The tail had risen during Silver's little speech, the sun winking off the seashell scales. "I-I can't eat raw fish."

“That be a calamity, such!” The mershark hummed. “And for me to not taste one morsel of two-leg fish, a greater one!”

Jim shivered. He bit his lip, lowering his fish onto his lap, and the mershark stretched his smile, crinkling the corners of his brilliant eyes.

“Fine.” Jim freed one of his sticks, and at arm’s length, offered it warily to Silver’s reaching claws. The mershark took it keenly, his webbed forefinger trailing from the knuckle to the nail of Jim’s thumb. Jim felt his body sear like the skin of the fish on the grill, and he retreated, his appetite lost, a tingle across his arms and face. “There. Y-You happy?”

He cursed his stammer. Silver took a bite, then another, smacking his lips. He lifted his hand to the other two fish cooling in the sand, and the remains of Jim’s own supper, and beckoned them all closer.

Jim obliged, feeling like a fool, and before he could ask why the hell he was doing it, he was there, shy of Silver’s mossy throne, and Silver was helping himself to the remains of Jim’s supper.

“Not bad, not bad indeed,” he mused, picking out the bones. “Why, the way it be, I can see why you two-legs do such wild things to yer food.”

“Right,” Jim said, shortly. The return of his facilities had soured his mood, and irritation had taken over his fear, and so instead he leant over the purgatorial rock between them, watching Silver steadily making his way through his dinner. The mershark sighted the gloom on his brow and chuckled like a devil, privy to a private joke. Jim retrieved his flask from his hip and took a swig of his small beer.

The flask left his lips, dribbling ale down his chin, and Silver took a long glug, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the motion. One eye was open, focused, brazenly fixed on Jim.

Temper struck Jim and he snatched the flask free from his hands.

“Must you?” He snarled and drank the rest, too quickly. The sensation of Silver’s lips on the cap stung weird around his tongue, and he gagged, his hand to his mouth.

“Now, now,” Silver sniggered. Jim froze, for Silver’s hand was on his back, rubbing in slow circles. “Let’s not be too hasty now, lad. You’ll choke if you do that. Why, Two-Legs have such sensitive gullets.”

Jim scrambled away, the phantom heat of Silver on his skin and mouth, and Silver smiled, oh so nice, as Jim arranged himself back in the sand.

“We can’t eat fish whole,” Jim threw the sticks into the fire. It was a redundant point. “Hence why we cook and spice it, and don’t gobble it down like…”

“And thanks to you, lad!” Silver broke in, sprightly. “Why, me and me clan can gobble to our heart’s content.”

Jim did not respond but continued to pick through his sticks. Minutes passed, and Jim relaxed, expecting the pest to be gone, only to look back and see him there, observing him all so close and careful.

"I wager," Silver said, with more than a hint of mischief; "That a young lad like you tends to be curious about the world, hm?"

“I didn’t come here for a conversation,” Jim said tightly, collecting his effects.

“Truly not, hm?” The mershark hummed in disappointment. “That be a great shame, for I know many things, do I.”

There was the slightest twitch in Jim’s fingers, the barest pause in his step. Silver smiled all the wider. Jim glanced back the smoking chimney pots in the village, and with a scowl, turned back to Silver, who settled down comfortably upon his rock, and a nudge of his head, gestured for Jim to sit.

Like a child, he did. His heart was pounding loud in his ears, but curiosity, always an insistent devil, drummed out all thoughts in his head.

“Does it start once upon a time?”

“What a wit, he be.” Silver snickered. “Don’t they all, hm?”

“There was a sailor, say I, many years hence, who struck a deal with one of my kin, much as ye did, young master. In exchange for fair sailin', he had to turn over the first bit of gold he came across with his new wealth and exchange it for the terms demanded. Well, under dark of night, he came to this same bay, and sang our ancient song, and brought us near. We kept our terms, shed our blood to keep the bay safe and clear from maneaters. And we, ourselves, had eaten men in the past, and so we near starved for this one piece of sweet gold, for it being the first taste of wealth for Two-Legs, it could carry great magic and prosperity to our race, and that be why we craved it so.”

Musing, he fingered the finery on his neck and wrists and cackled at Jim's expression.

“Gold is not just metal to us. Why, it be an insult to say as such! For Two-Legs, it buys all fancy trinkets but to us, it carries all the stories of all those that have handled and passed it on, through blood and madness and even love, and so gives us that power and makes us live long and strong. It be a small price to ask a Two-Leg for their first bit of gold, but to us, to have that first new nugget of joy, what a sweet prize it be.

So my kin cleared the seas and directed the winds true, and say the sailor, we do well, until he starts wearing bronze, then silver, and we all wait and watch, so hungry we be, for that one touch of gold. Indeed, he has it, and it be beautiful too, given as a token of love, and blind to the ruthlessness of what he did to get it.

But he comes not to the water, does the sailor. He marries and prospers and takes our efforts for his own. We confront him one fine morning, and there he be, wearing it proud, and he refuses our pact, sayin’ there will be other gold. That be against our terms, and so selfish it be, for we have suffered and starved and we said if he not keep to our agreement, he shall suffer and starve too.

He refused again, and so we dragged his boats down to the depths and ate his flesh, but the gold was gone, and so from in and out, we were cursed by our pact, for as we never had our gold, we could not leave the bay ‘till it be ours, as is the nature of our kind. So here we live, barely, hunted if we take a man, so we take fish, instead, and now we be hunted for there not be enough fish in all.

Except for you, lad. You be the first to honour his agreement.”

“Am I supposed to believe that?” Jim wondered aloud.

“Aye,” Silver nodded sagely, tweaking a piece of fin between his fangs. “Believe it or not, my lad, but it be true as the sky, I say that.”

Jim watched him, wondering.

“You say you were betrayed,” he said quietly, and the pondering in his voice stilled the hungry claw of the mershark. “I’m sorry you were trapped here.”

“Oh, oh lad!” The mershark waved his hand flippantly. “It be so long ago now, lad. Why, we be used to it now, say I.”

“I see.” Jim rose and turned toward the village. He felt strange. What did Silver want to tell him, with a story like that? “I should be on my way now.”

“Very well,” came the light reply; “See you soon, lad.”

His great tail lifted from the shallows, struck the water and he was off, a dark shape vanishing into the depths of the bay.

* * *

The old pub groaned in the winds. From the window Jim watched the waves embrace in clashes of spray, the sick dark green booming against the cliff. The swollen beams of the tavern dripped with it, teardrops thick against the grubby windows, Jim nursed his bitter grog, for Mrs B had staved off the best rum for paying customers, and the water from the pump pipe was claggy and choked with mildew.

John was in that storm, somewhere, diving beneath all that watery mass and madness. Jim imagined the tail lashing in the elements, corkscrew hair swarming like seaweed.

The elders held their court in the centre of the inn. The silence of the tavern, save the storm, gave prominence to their stories. Garrett sat close, his ears and eyes open. Richard scoffed and downed his grog, but his tankard shook in his grip.

Jim had heard the stories so many times they had become lullabies, warm and worn and almost a comfort, but now he heard them all anew.

"The mershark's worst weapon that be at his disposal," the elder said, with all the men nodding sagely; "Be his voice, for it holds power like the devil 'ave over the sinners, and it drags ye to the depths or to their teeth."

Jim recalled the hum of Silver's tongue between fangs white as oyster pearls. He shivered at the memory, not altogether unpleasant, and that was enough to inspire a shimmer of fear.

"Don't get it myself," Richard's mutter made him almost spill his drink; he didn't know he was so tense. "What's the difference between all this and a siren? Bunch of bullshit I've never heard. Get a bunch of men who've been at sea so long they've forgotten where their cock is, and they make up all kinds of stories."

"Sirens are women," Jim replied, taking a swig of grog to steady his nerves, wincing at the taste. He glanced at Garrett, who'd come to join them. He'd found it hard to look at Garrett recently, to not let his gaze cling to the dimpling of his smiles. Long John's hum vibrated smugly across his memory, and Jim shivered anew.

"So what?" Richard rattled. Garrett smirked to himself. "From what I've heard, they can't tell the difference most of the time."

* * *

"Is it true?"

Silver was propped on his usual rock. Jim was sat on the nearby sands, repairing his nets. The exchange wasn't due in another week, but as far as Jim could see, it wasn't stopping his new associate.

"What be true, Jim-Lad?" So, he was awake. It was hard to tell sometimes. For an apparently vicious predator (according to Mrs B, at least) he sure dozed plenty.

“About your singing,” Jim tore at a tangled bit of hemp net with his teeth. "Apparently, it's powerful. Is that true?"

It was a dangerous question. But in the sun, on the sands that Jim knew so well, it didn't seem so. Anyway, his curiosity from the previous night had kept him awake.

Silver chuckled.

“Why lad, asking me about me voice, is well…” He cast off into the water, shockingly quick, although his damaged fin kept him lopsided. Jim had been observing the injury, how it stalled his movement, and occasionally, even caused the creature pain, if the twitch in his back and jaw were anything to see. He knew better than to ask, however – except about this, of course, for a strange expression had taken Silver’s face. “…bit like me askin’ to see your knife, hm?”

“That dangerous?” Jim felt comfortable on the sand. He tightened the knots in his net, and held it against the sun, examining his handiwork.

“It be a queer thing, for I cannot remember,” He shrugged. “Been many an age since I last used it, lad. I think you fellows make up stories about us, more than we know ourselves.”

Jim tittered under his breath. He gathered the repaired nets in his arms and laid them in the dinghy, and returned to his pile, reaching for yet another tattered net. The mershark was closer now, leant fuller over the rock. The sun shone through his nails, bone clean claws from the saltwater, tapping along the dribbling rock in thought, as his tail flicked and twitched and agitated the tiny silver fish in the pools.

It was thirsty work. Jim grabbed his bag, heavy with salted meat, dry bread, ale and apples. Since his success, Mrs B had been spoiling him a little more. Still disapproving, but the fact he had not been washed up in bloody tatters on the beach so far had quelled her worry. So instead of a tongue lashing, he got apples and the better ale. He smiled as he thought of Richard, green as jealous grass.

Jim _relaxed._

It was a surprising relaxation, for it sprung upon him like a sweet dream. His lungs sunk with his slow, heavy breath as he realised there was a sound. It was warm and impossibly deep, carrying the aches and agonies off his back, and his mind became as butter, melting. Pleasant heat rose in his cheeks, and he was aware, just slightly, that he was moving, slow languid steps, until cool water pooled around his ankles and the bag was lifted gently from his outstretched arm.

_Crunch._

Jim woke with a start.

Silver was spitting pips into the sea. The lunch bag was slung over his shoulder, dragging in the wet.

“Why, thank ye lad.” He said, oh so pleasant. “Tis’ very kind to share your lunch.”

Jim did not move. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Silver’s lips curved up his cheeks, the apple held over his sharp, sharp teeth.

“I’ve got to go.” Jim swallowed. “I have things to do.”

"Aye, yes." The mershark nodded, understanding. "I bet you have, and all."

Jim did not retrieve his bag, hung like a trophy from the mershark’s neck. He didn’t even stay to gather his repaired nets. As he trudged up the hillside to the inn, he could hear Silver’s laughter, carrying high on the breeze.

* * *

The early morning robbed the pub of its nightly magic. It was a Sunday, and therefore Mrs B and Richard soundly slept. Garrett had risen early to find Jim cleaning up the plates and tankards from the previous night.

"I can make breakfast if you like," he tugged his nightshirt off his back. The dusky cool of the downstairs made him rub his arms. Jim pretended not to notice. "Fire up some bacon and eggs."

"That'll be good," Jim scrubbed the plates. He swallowed tightly as his friend brushed past him to the kitchen. "Thank you."

"You alright, Jim?" Garrett set up the heat. Jim heard the crisp and fry of eggs and tried to think of nothing else. "The fishing going alright?"

"Fine," Jim lied.

"I see." The bacon crackled and Jim's stomach emphatically groaned. It would be a fair trade for fish. "Why are you lying to me, Jim?"

"I'm not." Another lie, this one bigger than the last, and the hurt in Garrett's face were plain to see because it was all Jim could see at that point. The sun filtered pretty through the shutters, a gold rinse on the ruby browns of Garrett's face, a gleam of worry caught in his single dark eye. His other eye, the chilly blue, shimmered like light on seawater and Jim turned away.

"It's not that," He tried another lie, this time, hidden in the guise of another truth. "Smollett wants me to join his ship. Mrs B told me."

"A commission? Always knew he was fond of you." Garrett laid the eggs and bacon on separate plates. "That's what you've always wanted."

"What _we've_ wanted," Jim corrected before he could stop himself. Garrett went still; Jim cursed himself. "I know I've been distracted. I'm sorry, Garrett. With the fishing and the sailing, I don't know what I..."

"Other people can fish, Jim."

"No, they can't. Not where I am, not the way I do."

"I saw you talking to the elders." Garrett placed the plates on the table. "You didn't tell me or Richard what you said."

"I can't." Jim put the last plate away. "I gave my word I wouldn't repeat it."

He had. That wasn't a lie.

Jim turned, for the boards creaked with the weight of Garrett's approach, and on his friend's face was an uncharacteristic frown, but in it, there was something other than hurt.

Jim opened his mouth; Garrett touched his cheek, and Jim closed it again.

“What’s cookin’?” Richard rattled in with a yawn. Rubbing his eyes, he peered at the two men, jumped apart. “Was I interrupting something?”

* * *

A month later, Jim had been walking toward his bay before he’d been halted by a messenger, who’d pushed a sealed letter into his hands. He’d opened it on the way down to the beach before he sat cross-legged on the shore and reread each word until the ink bled onto his hands.

“A commission, is it?” came a broad voice, and Jim jolted, stuffing it down his shirt. The creature – it could _read_ – had been peeking over his shoulder. “Why, a fine thing that be. Congratulations, lad.”

“Thank you.” Jim turned to his boat, which had been hemmed by the rocks. The tide had upset it and sent it bobbing at the end of its rope. Jim sighed at the sight and waded in up to his chest to drag it back to shore. “Admiral Smollett is signing me on. He knew my father.”

“Your father, hm?” The mershark examined his nails. “Why, that be somethin’. As it is, what a shame ye have already given your word to me, else I would wave you off meself.”

Jim blinked.

“What are you talking about?”

“Why lad. Not going back on your word, are you?”

“Never.” Jim was irritated at the very prospect. “But I can’t be here forever. I will decide with the elders. You will have your fish. There was nothing in our agreement about me being the _only_ deliverer.”

"Hmmm, well…" The mershark hummed. Jim feared he would break into a song. A song that would take him into the water, certain for him to never leave and break his word. "It be a shame, lad. Why, we be so close. I do not think it right for me to accept any other to pay me."

“What do you mean?” Jim shoved the dinghy harder against the tide. Exhausted, he struggled to ram his weight against the hull. Why, why was he so tired?

Silver was still humming as slow as poured syrup.

“Stop that!” Jim snapped, turning on his ankle in the shallows. “I know what you’re doing, goddamn it.”

The humming halted. Jim dared a look back. The bay was empty, the rock neglected. He creased his brow, wiping the salt from his eyes, and ground the bow of his dinghy on the stones. If the creature wished to sulk, fine -

His ankle was yanked below him.

Jim was thrown back against the sand, stones a painful scrape on his back, and into the tide he was dragged, water rushing past his ears and eyes. Jim’s hands raked uselessly against the current, until he was slung out of the white waters and onto the belly of the rock.

“This be the more practical way of keepin’ ye here, if you prefer,” came a curt voice. “Why, always in a hurry, you are. So keen to run, hm?”

Silver’s bulk pinned Jim to the rock. Jim shuddered in response, feeling awful frail in the grip of Long John’s claws. Silver peered at him curiously. 

“Why, my lad,” He said, a little gentler. “Ye be so afraid, hm?”

“A mershark killed my father,” Jim whispered, forcing his lips to work.

“Aye, that I know,” Silver caught the trail of Jim’s terrified tear. “It be a shame, but that be life, Jim. I wish it hadn’t been so.”

He chuckled then, at the pallor in Jim’s look, and inched closer, sliding his palms up against the rock, so their faces were barely a nose apart. Jim swallowed, hard, speechless.

“It be a shame,” he continued; “But I know a secret, do I. I know what of my kin did the deed, my lad, and so fond I have become of you, I do feel well to share it.”

“Y-You do?”

“Hm, yes.” Silver nodded with great conviction. “But as all the things in life, Jim-Lad, it be at a price.”

Jim forced a shade of his old suspicion.

“Really?” He said. “You have my fish and my attention. What else do you want? What could I possibly give you?”

"Oh, well…" A touch of mischief returned to the old shark's face. "It be a small thing. A fine thing, methinks." He turned his head to the side, just so. "A kiss, maybe?"

Blood boomed in Jim. He shoved Silver away – useless, for the creature merely floated, as simple and smirking as a dream – and Jim scrambled for the sand, tripping as he did so, falling head fast into the boat.

Silver roared with laughter.

“What is wrong with you?” Silver saw the rash of embarrassment bloom on Jim’s exposed chest and clicked approvingly. “How can you – what?”

“It be such a simple thing, I say!” Silver cackled. “Why, two-legs be as entertaining as ever! But trust me, Jim- Lad…” He tapped his nose. “I stand true to me word, as always. The offer still stands.”

Jim meant to say it would stand forever, but instead, all he could do was stare disbelieving, panting hot and nervous and sick, until, with a final click of joy, Long John dived back into the waves and was gone.

* * *

A _kiss._

How dare he.

A kiss, by design, was a simple thing. But a kiss with a thing like that could be a contract.

Jim knew that; he’d heard enough stories. It was unjustifiable punishment in considering Smollett’s invitation. But what did he expect, for that spoilt, selfish creature? To act like a gentleman?

But Silver knew about his father.

The _bastard._

* * *

Long John was visibly unsurprised to see him back the following day. It was if he had never moved from his spot. There was no fish to deliver, and no work to be done at the ol’ Benbow, so Jim had had too much time to mull it.

He didn’t even bother with an introduction.

“A kiss?” Jim dared with a confidence he did not feel. He pushed himself over the rock, just shy of Silver’s winking face. The mershark stretched, yawned, and rolled on his front. “That’s it?”

“As always,” Silver explained, weary. “My price be fair.”

“Fine,” Jim leant as close as he dared. A kiss on the forehead would do. “Just one, and…”

There was a tongue, there were teeth, there was the taste of grit and salt and fish skin. Jim finally broke away for air, clothes soaked and heavy, dazed in his eyes and mind with water lapping against his chest.

“Heh.“ Silver cradled Jim’s face. “A fine payment, it be. So I shall tell you, then.”

“Uh…yes.” Jim backed against the rock. Silver chuckled and placed him back on the rock. Jim tried not to dwell on the ease in which he did it. The intensity of the payment had for a moment; stolen the very reason he was here. “You knew him.”

“That I did, yes.” Silver nodded. "Wily creature he was. Could carry a grudge like a devil, and bitter be too." He flicked his silver tail. "Why, his own tail was black and red, and infamous for it too, for it be the only one of his kind among us to have such a thing."

“What became of him?” Jim swallowed, sick at the memory. Silver read it on his face. “Why did he murder my father?”

The shark shrugged.

“For what became of ‘im, I believe he died. As for your poor father, lad…” He patted his leg in a mock show of sympathy. “Just unlucky, me thinks.”

“Oh.” Jim looked away. On the horizon, he imagined the boat, and the figures and the helpless horror of it rose in his throat. He sighed, deep and trembling, and turned toward the tide, remembering the red of it. "I see."

There was no reason, no hidden agenda, no secret. His father had died as so many sailors had died. Be it by elements or wild animal, he was simply unlucky.

“Now, lad.” Silver touched his face. Jim jumped, unaware of the evidence of his tears. “Do not be so down now. Why, ye be livin’ and any father worth his salt be grateful for that, I hear.”

“Hm.” Jim did not pull away. He found for the first time that he did not want to. Instead, he closed his eyes and laid the weight of his cheek further into Silver’s palm. “Thank you for telling me, regardless.”

“It be a time ago, now.” The mershark mused. “Why, it be so odd to me. How heavy your heart be, after all them years.”

“We have shorter lives,” Jim murmured, falling further into the touch. “And longer memories, because of it.”

“Nature’s cruel trick, ye live so short and so little,” Silver agreed. His thumb brushed away Jim’s tear, and he uttered quietly; “I know a way to lighten yer heart, laddie.”

“Hm?” Jim opened his eyes. “How?”

Silver smiled.

Jim was too late. Like a fool, he barely had time to protest, before Silver’s mouth opened and out came a voice, rough as raw silk and sweet as sin.

It was a song Jim had heard many a time before, exchanged in mismatched tempos by laughing couples, but never had he heard it like this. The words fluttered out, lovely and low as if the song itself had breathed a soul. It was the only thought Jim had, that he’d heard it elsewhere, before the song rushed into his ears and body. He sank onto the stone, weightless, as the world sang with it, and he was barely aware of arms catching him as he fell, and the touch of lips to his cheek as the song carried on, over the hilltops to the village, and in the arms of the creature, Jim slept.

* * *

Jim swam that night, in his dreams. The skin of the water, touched by the setting sun, rippled above. He was a child again, on the shore, seeing that ruby black tail lift and crash into the ocean. Although he looked up, the sun was distorted and ghostly in the setting dark, and beneath him, the abyss opened -

\- and Jim opened his eyes.

The moon dove behind the weak flurries of a cloud, breeze whistling through the curtains of the window of his room. Jim sat up and lifted the sheets, feeling along his chest and belly. Gravelly rocks had cut up his back and shoulders, where he'd been laid on the bay, and maybe, maybe where he'd been dragged home.

On the cabinet were water and dry bread. The rocking chair sat by the window; a discarded blanket left on its seat. Garrett, he guessed. Richard must have convinced him to go to bed.

Jim curled it into his chest. It was still warm, albeit barely.

What was he thinking, choosing to enter the water with a mershark? It was the oldest tale of all the tales. If you go into the sea with a mershark, you never come out. And as for that kiss, well, a kiss was no contract, ancient lore be damned. Jim held the blanket close to his heart and closed his eyes. Of that, he was certain. He still had his powers about him. The price for Silver's story, a truth not even the elders could give him.

But his body stung with their encounter. The taste of saltwater was raw on his tongue, an intimate scratch on his senses. But Silver had honoured their promise.

He'd told him how his father died.

From his window, Jim could see how the bay had been stripped bare in the moonlight. The water was dark and impossibly deep, carrying the calm of a graveyard, and Jim could hear nothing, not even the calls of the birds. 

Jim searched for his bags, his nets, scattered about in the distance. The surrounding sands were empty.

A breeze blew, fluttering the curtains and straying free about the room.

With it came a faint choral of clicking, swelling in sound.

* * *

"Care to explain, boy?" Mrs B's generous shadow filled out the stairway. Jim saw her without seeing her. He pulled the ties on his shirt and continued down the stairs.

"I fell asleep on the shore." Jim paused by her; she stared at him, hard, but her jaw was pulling. She'd been no mother, but she'd been there, none the less. "I'm sorry if I worried you."

"Falling asleep, was it?" She caught his arm. "For nay I see a boy, soaked through, sleepin' with the weight of the dead on him. And now, I see a man with eyes all glassed, not knowin' where he be."

"I know where I am," Jim released her hand, gently. He lifted the nets and slung them on his back. "I have things on my mind. The commission, the fishing."

"Aye." She felt around her neck for her pendant. "The fishing, is it? You don't need to go so early or so far."

"People are counting on me."

"Aye. As are we. As is Garrett."

Jim didn't have time to start at the name, for something warm and heavy was pushed into his palm. It was Mrs B's locket. He'd never seen it so close before; etched onto the clasp was _L.H._

"It belonged to your father." She said. "I found it washed on the shore the night after his death. I reckon it what caught the attention of those gluttonous gold devils."

Jim stared at it.

"It's gold."

"Aye, old gold." She nodded. "Used to have a lock of your mother's hair in it. She gave it to him before she died."

Jim thumbed the dented back. It was small and fragile and glinted weakly in his palm.

_He does not remember. Sometimes he does, sometimes he does not, but there is something sparkling upon the broad width of his father’s neck._

"I see." Jim closed his palm, tight.

Mrs B nodded.

"I'm sorry, lad." She said roughly. She patted his shoulder and moved on, a hulk of skirts and arthritis. "I think you're now ready to have it."

* * *

The fish were piled high on the rocks. Jim heaved up the wicker barrels of his own share and carried them up to the foot of the hill (three miles inland, and safe enough for the local men to collect.) The spring had transformed into summer overnight, and the pathway back to collect his nets and supplies was long, dry with bracken and hot sand, and by the time he returned to the bay, the heat had made him irritable, cruel.

The heap of fish was gone. In their place was Silver, fish gut strung from his teeth. 

In silence, Jim collected his nets. The locket was visible on his bare chest.

Silver sat up slowly, the water stirring with him. The half-eaten fish lay forgotten in the sun.

Jim folded away his nets in his sack and turned back to the path.

"Lad..." It was smile hidden behind a hiss. "You not in the mood to speak to Long John, no?"

"I have nothing to say."

"That not be true." He whined, sweetly; "Why, you have so much to say you're comin' apart with it, laddie."

"I have to get back." Jim said dully; "You have your fish, what else do you want?"

"You." He replied, and Jim stumbled, suddenly, and Silver smiled with all his teeth, and added, even more sweetly; "Your company, that be."

"You want this," Jim said, and held the locket up to the sun, and Silver's pupils fattened with greed. "Don't you?"

"We-ell..." He crept along with the tide, pawing with his hands into the shallows. Jim took a step back. "You know me so well, lad."

"You have gold plenty," Jim whispered. "Enough to glut the King of Spain. Why would this trinket mean so much to you?"

Silver clicked in his own language, rolling his tongue across his fangs. That sound - like the bleat of crickets - shivered every hair on Jim's neck.

"It was my father's," he continued, in way of defence. "It's all I have left of him and my mother."

"You have his compass," reasoned the creature. "And your memory, and his golden hair upon ye head. You don't need it."

"Is this what your kind killed him for?" Jim bit at the words. Silver followed his footsteps in the water, a hungry mirror. "For a locket made of scrap gold?"

The sand at his feet was struck by a swipe of claws; Jim kicked away, falling on his rump.

"Not quite." Silver teased. His eyes were the black marble of a shark. "But why, a pretty trinket it be, and for all our misfortune, I says it be owned to us by rights.”

Jim looked upon the face and saw in it a bestial greed. Betrayal was a vicious sink in his gut. John clicked, curling back his claws, green returning to his irises.

"We shed our blood for that, lad," he said, with a flutter of regret.

"So did my father," Jim replied. A sob escaped him, and he hated himself further for that. "To think, I ever trusted you."

"What have I done to betray you?" He moved toward the rock. "I 'ave only ever given you what you asked, lad. Only ever been so generous."

"What right have you to this?" Jim exclaimed. "Was my father the sailor who broke his word to you?"

Silver mused, clicking.

"My father might have broken his word," Jim tore the locket from his neck. "But I won't."

He threw it. Silver caught it in his claw, and sunk into the water, clicking slow, dangerous.

"I never want to see you again," Jim warned. "Never. I will leave the fish here, as requested, but you are not to touch us during the day."

The creature seemed incapable of speech. It just blinked its eyes, unseeing, at Jim.

Jim's lip pulled. Tears distressed his sight. He turned away.

A sharp, beautiful song stopped his feet.

Jim covered his ears and ran.

* * *

The summer bulged in the following month. The heat became complete, inescapable. Jim worked all the harder and ignored the clicks and clacks of ancient tongues that haunted in the whispers of the water.

He delivered the fish, as promised. Also, as he had demanded, he saw Long John no more. Had the locket put the old matter to rest, satisfied the grudge of the merpirates? Did his own father – in an ill bidden attempt to hold onto the only memory of his mother – break his promise, and doom them all to a decade and a half of war?

Jim couldn’t think. He ate his fish, he drank his ale, and he listened to his friend’s stories. But he was not himself. It was as if his very bones were upset as if his skin was stretched over a jumble of dissatisfaction. He couldn’t settle. Even with his future set to sail in September – and what of the fish, and what of the deal? – it didn’t calm him.

The heat made everything stick. He’d never thought he’d be rid of it, or be wishing for the intimate evenings of autumn, with long nights and fireside tales.

Maybe it hadn’t been his father. Silver had never said it had been the locket. He knew it was the only piece of gold his father had ever owned. Mrs B had told him that. Maybe it was enough to quell the wrath of the creatures. He didn’t know, couldn’t know, couldn’t imagine even. The everlasting questions interfered with his days.

The last week of August arrived. Jim sat in the pub as the candles burnt down. Garrett and Richard had long gone to bed. Jim’s exhaustion hadn’t left him but instead inspired sleepless, garrulous energy. He rose as he heard Mrs B finally begin to snore, and slipped out of the Benbow Inn, silently into the night.

* * *

He had questions. They had robbed a boy of his father; he had given them food and the gold they desired. It was not unreasonable what he was seeking. It was his curiosity, he told himself firmly. Long John had answers that only he could tell. To leave these shores ignorant would be a crime unto itself.

It had been gullible to assume the mershark had been a friend. Silver had been right, to some degree – he had not betrayed him, but he had not told the truth either. The shark had spoken as if it had been so long ago. Fifteen years was hardly a lifetime.

He’d never traversed on the bay during the night. It was humid and cloudy, and the water roiled in the caverns, spitting over the rocks and flooding the shallow pools.

Jim stood by their meeting place, Silver's throne and the rocky cradle for the fish. Jim palmed the curve of it, slicking back the wet moss with his fingers.

"Silver?" He called. He didn't know if the others would hear; he didn't even know if they could understand human speech. If there were any others, that was. "Silver, I need to talk to you."

Silence.

Jim waded, slowly, into the water. It bubbled around his ankles, dark even in the shallows.

Something _clicked._

Cold scaled hands closed around his ankles, and the sea closed above his head.

* * *

Jim broke the water. The bracing hands left him, and Jim threw back his head, taking deep and breaking gulps of air. He groped senselessly, finding a solid rise of pulp sand and rock.

Around him, there was high, violent clicking, a peal of demented laughter. Jim opened his eyes.

Cragged rocks formed an enormous cavern. Sand and sea debris raked Jim's knees, drawing blood as he dragged himself up, and he felt the slither of fins, sweetly caressing his face. Jim gagged and batted them away, and around him rose a chorus of clicking. The fins retreated, shimmering silver-white against the opal tail and Jim scrambled back toward the pool, swallowing hard.

Lounged on a throne of moss and shell was Silver. Studded on the brass of his skin were scales and the tops of his ears were finned and frilled, emboldened with dangling strips of gold and gem. His tapping fingers were weighted with rings, his bare chest and arms bangled with pirate gold. A circlet of rubies was bloody in the black pool of his hair. Like a Midas, he sat, draped in his finery (and as Jim had come to know it, his power) and his eyebrows were high, his smile dangerous.

Jim feverishly recalled the bargain. We would have the bay during the day, but...

He hadn't thought of the night. Why would he, when Silver had abused the rockpools so carelessly in the sun? But maybe that was different for them. So suspicious they all were. Why did he believe that Silver would have any cause to believe him?

Jim retreated. His captors clucked and thrust him forward again until his face was shy of the throne. Jim went to rise, thought better of it, and stayed on his knees. Silver saw this and smiled all the wider.

The cavern glittered and it wasn't the moonlit water. Troves of gold made up the walls and were scattered across the floors. In the centre of the cave, piled high in diamond mounds, was the fish. It stood as much as a part of the treasure as the Spanish goblets, the sapphires, the Viking amulets.

An enormous skeleton framed the throne and made part of it. Half man, half-shark, with gold in the teeth and a terror that was borne into the very skull, with a tail span that matched Silver’s.

Silver laid his palm on the skull and winked at Jim.

Chirps and shrieks and clicks came alive around him. He turned toward the noise and could just about see the shapes of the creatures, sets of eyes and teeth, feral in their activity.

Silver clicked once, and in turn, came silence.

Jim started, for Silver's claws were rolling the golden strands of his hair between his webbed fingers. An excited ripple animated the watching crowd.

Silver apologetically petted his head, shifting his palm to cup Jim's face, before, with a grin, he chucked Jim's chin. Blunt laughter broke the spell and Jim tore himself away with a growl.

 _"What do you want?"_ His human speech fell alien on the air. The clicking halted. Silver sat back, rubbed his beard, and in a series of conversational clicks, began to explain. The laughter returned. Jim's face grew hotter in the face of his own ignorance.

Silver halted the sneering with a raise of his hand. Then, with his other hand outstretched, he nodded to Jim, in way of apology, before he patted his lap, and once again, the humour roared.

Jim hardened. Silver sat back, rubbing his chin.

A wash of music, smooth and sonorous, swept up Jim and drank him up like alcohol. Jim rose, as if in a dream, and -

Silver's beard scratched his brow. He lay across Silver’s lap like a cat.

Jim spun out and struck him across the face.

The impact echoed loud and mean in the cavern.

Silver rubbed across his pinked cheek, bristling his beard with his thumb. Moonlight shimmered across the skin, the scales lifting and flattening on his neck and hands, the human guise flaking away to the creature beneath.

Jim took a step back, cradling his hand. Clicking rose dangerously about him, tremoring the air.

Nonchalantly, Silver reached for a fish, where he tore into the scales and pulp with a delayed fury. Jim flinched and massaged his knuckles.

Through the fish flesh, Silver uttered a sweet, sharp sound. It was different than the song, for the world did not flutter or his mind break, but Jim's knees buckled, and he was once again, on the floor.

The water began to rise, soaking the bottom of Jim's shoes. Waves gurgled and grew, swarming around his knees. Jim struggled to stand, only for another slosh of sea to knock him back, away from the rise of land and into the pool where he’d emerged.

Jim kicked his legs, trying to propel himself against the gravity of the current. The green thick waters were murky, as shadows befitted with tails - long and gnarled, torn caudal fins shifting like seaweed in the wind - skulked about him. A long-pearled tail emerged from the depths, curling around his legs. Silver rose in his sight, circling. The moon penetrated the sea, and Jim saw the scars on his stomach and chest, faded like old map markers. Razor teeth split his gums as he embraced Jim from behind, clicking into his ear.

Jim’s chest burned. A stream of bubbles escaped his open mouth, last whispers of breath before he was thrust through the surface, the relief in his lungs almost painful.

Jim tumbled onto the rocks, choking. Silver laughed, bemused, the most human sound he’d made. Jim spat out saltwater.

“You have your trinket,” he choked. “What more do you want?”

Silver, infuriatingly, shook his head. His crescent moon smile curled up his face and was not at all kind. He ruffled Jim’s hair, curling the gold around his fingertips. He smiled again and lifted his eyebrows, and Jim struggled to think.

_"You have his compass," reasoned the creature. "And your memory, and his golden hair upon ye head…”_

There was a song. It wasn’t like any of the other songs that came before.

“Oh.” Jim’s ears buzzed. His body tingled; he fell, loose and useless, into the sea, into the spread arms of the mershark, of Silver. “Oh. Oh god, _oh_.”

Silver was _singing_. Not humming, not whistling, but singing, full-throated, a lovely evil of a voice. Jim saw the scales opening on his face, his hands and neck, moonshine flesh beneath the tawdriness of his human guise. His tail floated below, pushing up between Jim’s legs, his shirt being shed so finely he couldn’t notice the cool on his bare skin. Silver closed his song around Jim’s lips, _crushing_ the notes into him.

Silver’s chorus was met with others, strung along in the night, as other heads broke the face of the water, glittering eyes and open mouths. They sang like the sailors on the docks, but older, as if the very concept of song had been borrowed from them alone. They swam in massive clouds of shadow, moonlight lustrous off the heavy hurl of their tails in the bay. Jim’s head swam with them. He swam in the sea, in the sky, in the touch of Silver’s teeth to his neck.

Jim’s body was alive. Jim was –

The tail pushed between his legs, spreading his thighs. The fearsome strength of it dragged back and forth as Jim was pushed back against a rock, chest and head above the water. Beneath them, the depths dipped off into the blackness, horrifically deep, and Jim's chest heaved at the thought, his bare human feet dangling small and vulnerable in the mass of it.

Silver’s tail coiled around his kicking legs, immobilising him. Panic made Jim thrash; Silver held him all the tighter. Soaked curls stuck to his burly arms, his eyes hugely luminous, and he rippled his tail once more between Jim’s legs, as the friction pounded blood in Jim’s groin.

Jim groped for him, panicked. He had no choice, there was nothing else to anchor him in the great blue. His hips ground on his own accord, and Silver's smile lit. He was clicking, cackling, a creak and twist of vocals that stood Jim's hair on end. It was a dense, dirty, primaeval sound. He pulsed his tail again and Jim gripped at his shoulders, the song rising above and around him, his body white-hot. Silver clicked into his skin. It was warm and close and almost like comfort.

Silver sidled his hands up Jim’s torso, the large fingers feeling over his heart. Jim clamoured at Silver’s shoulders, his breath high and tight, an unravelling surge in his lower body. Silver clicked against his ear, nipping the curve of his lobe, affectionate, and once again the tail returned, dividing his legs, and Silver was singing again, but this was different. Into Jim’s ear, he sang an intimate sin, bleeding stars into his eyes and head.

* * *

The bay was older, older than the elders, maybe older than the surrounding cliffs. Jim woke on that shore that morning, with the air fresh and clean in the fishless lagoons and looked about the world in a trance. The spoil of himself and the sand mingled between his legs. Jim stumbled, as if drunk, and felt his burning throat, and found the tin-gold locket, hung from his neck.

His bones roiled in his skin as he staggered back, the road longer now than it had ever been, and the early rising wives caught sight and mumbled about the evils of drink.

As he arrived back at the inn still shuttered against the sun, Jim had a memory. As a child, the inn had been haunted by an old sailor, rampant with stories and head sick with rum. He spoke of the horrors, which only drink could quell, else his mind would skip like stones into dark, deep places.

Jim wondered as he navigated the steps to his room like a blind man if ol’ Billy Bones hadn’t been a cruising drunk after all. Maybe, just maybe, he’d gone swimming one time too many.

* * *

His commission papers were lain out on the table. Garrett had already signed his name. Richard had refused, chosen to stay in the village, inherit the Inn and get fat on fish.

Jim had spent the night in the company of men with shark tails and songs that stripped sanity back to nothing more than sensation. Even with the passing month, every inch of him itched with the memory. He moved about as in a dream. He'd told no-one and done nothing about it. 

The song had carried an old world, dormant with mystery. It had incised Jim's brain, infected his waking hours, tightened his chest in a vice of fear and desire. He felt as if something ancient had been slipped into his skin, and refused, against all his pleas, to leave into the mist of his memory.

He didn't even know what it even _was_. What he wanted, that there was even something to want. As mysterious as it was, his heart still thrummed madly with it and left him pacing, sleepless.

Richard looked at him as if he was a stranger.

The bay called.

Jim ignored it, as he ignored the shake in his hand as he signed his name.

* * *

It was enough, Jim thought to himself, for him to come down here and see the calm of the bay, at least one final time. He’d said where he was going and Mrs B had called him foolish, but Jim knew that not to be. The following week he was to go to sea, and not to return. This bay was as much his any other creature, and he had a right to say goodbye to it.

_The itch in his ears, his skin. He needed to calm it, to shut it down._

He glanced toward the cavern where he had caught his fish and saw his old dinghy was still there, bumping lonely on the waves. The purgatorial rock where’d left his tribute looked oddly empty in the sun. Aching at the sight, Jim removed his locket and left it there.

The breeze began to pick, agitation on the spray. Jim turned, quickly, and was halfway up the sands before a voice called;

“Leavin’ so soon, lad?”

Toying with the necklace was Long John, holding it up between his nails.

“Yes,” Jim said, short, Silver swung the trinket back into his palm, and chuckled, mirthless.

“You be off then, I wonder.” He tugged himself onto the rock. “The Navy, I hear.”

“Where else?”

“I see. Ah, a waste.” Silver slunk around the stone, tapping his claws along the body of it. “Seems wicked, really.”

“It’s the way of things,” Jim said, practical. “I want a living beyond this place. My father was a sailor, and so I be too.”

“Father was a butcher, more like.” The locket screeched as Silver dragged it along the rocks. “Broke his promise to us, he did.”

“You have your gold.”

“This not be the gold that was promised.”

“Too bad!” Jim said sharply. “If it is not, then that be beyond my power, and it is not my burden to bear yours.”

“Be it not?” Silver cackled. "Why, that be strange. Didn't have you down as the sort to leave yer burdens to others."

"Others?" Jim felt for his flint knife, tied into his belt. "Are you going back on our deal, Long John?"

Silver clacked his teeth.

"Why, as I understood it, all deals were off, lad."

"What do you mean?"

The morning sun couldn't halt the sudden chill on his neck.

"As far as our last meeting is concerned..." He casually scratched the end of his nose. "Why, you entered the bay come nightfall, didn't you?"

"I don't remember what happened that night," Jim muttered, quickly. "It's blurry."

"Don't play coy with me, laddie," Silver said coldly. "I'm not a patient creature when it comes to all that."

Jim stared at him.

Silver ran his finger from his throat to his lips.

Jim curled his fists.

"I was dragged under by your so-called brethren," He blurted. "I could hardly resist, could I?"

"That not be all that happened," Silver said coolly. "Why, I be bold enough to say ye didn't find it altogether unpleasant."

"It was no insult to you!" Jim pleaded, choosing on pain of death to ignore Silver's final comment. "What does it matter? It will not be repeated. This area is reviled by the locals. You can have your fish and your solitude."

"Hm." Silver mused. "Well, maybe." He came closer, his tail arching out of the water. "But it be strange, says I, why should I respect one who bears no thought for our contracts? Why..." He rolled on his side and gestured to the scales ruggedly knitted into his scar. "...I've been burnt before."

"This is different."

"Aye, I was told otherwise, once."

"Fine." It was Jim's turn to be cold. "And what? You'll be hunted again, and they'll be no fish, however..." He took a step back. Silver's eyes rounded; Jim's heart hitched. "...seeing the hordes you already have, maybe you don't need it."

"So he does acknowledge!" He laughed. "So he did see our world, the errant lad, and live to tell the tale."

"You'd have killed me!"

"No point in killin' you," Silver had the decency to look surprised. "Why, so fond I have become of this two-leg." He held his hand over his heart. "Even if he does steal my kisses when it suits him and takes my voice when it pleases him, and oh..."

_"Enough!"_

"...and betrays me for the promise of a dull voyage," he added darkly. "Why, I have drowned them same ships, many a time, and the men there, all husks of ambition, come into my fangs willingly, so eager to die."

"You kill my kind so listlessly?" Jim cried. "And yet you baulk when they do the same to you!"

"All relative lad, all relative," he waved his hand, dismissive. "We do evil unto you, and you do evil unto us, and do even worse evils onto each other."

"Speaks the man who sits on the bones of his predecessor."

"Your memory be awful clear now, Jim."

"You never spoke to me." Jim backed toward the path; Silver followed along the line of the bay. "You humiliated me, near murdered me..."

"Oh, but I was speaking! All the time, well..." Jim hummed. "Why, ye weren't listening. And why would I take to his death my treasure, I wonder?"

"What?" Jim froze. "Treasure, what treasure?"

"As I said..." Silver said, soft. He broke the locket chain between his teeth. "This not be the gold I was promised."

Jim stumbled.

“What do you mean?”

“Why, and I thought ye be bright.”

“You’re lying,” Jim swore. “That’s not true, it can’t be.”

“Truer than the tide.” Silver looked at Jim and sighed softly. “You poor lad. Not yer fault, but that not be my problem now.”

“Gold…”

“But look at you, lad,” Silver whispered, even softer. Jim shook at the _wilderness_ in it. Silver didn’t have to sing. He only had to talk. “Hair like a streak of sun. Blood and gold, lad. Our trademarks.”

“My father wouldn’t have done that.” Jim pulled out his compass, squeezing it into his palm. “He loved me.”

“Claimed to love his village more, when I asked him the same thing,” Silver said. “Said he wanted to end this war, he did. I named my price, for I knew any son that came from a man darin’ to call upon us would be worthy meat. Smart as baby coral, I knew, the lad would be. Why…” He drew even closer, draping his arms over his rock. “I wasn’t disappointed, I must say.”

The denials rose and died on Jim’s tongue.

“He didn’t.” He could admit that. It wasn’t enough, but at least he could say it. “He didn’t give you what you wanted.”

“And cursed his town, he did. And us.” Silver rumbled, bemused, and ran his tongue over his teeth. “But you’re different, lad. Honest, brave and true.”

“I broke the bargain.”

“Didn’t mean to. I’m willin’ to overlook that, I be.”

“How generous.” Jim snarled, fisting away his tears.

“I be very generous, lad,” The mershark airily replied, his hand over his heart. “I can be kind, Jim.” He slunk along the shore, mirroring Jim’s stumbling steps. “Why, we’ve gotten close, you and I. Should make it easier, says I.”

“Easier for what?”

“To fulfil your father’s debt. To see away this grudge. Why, I wager…” He curled his claws in a beckon. “You be all too keen to return, hm? To come into the water, there be, and be cradled by Long John, I wonder?”

“I want no such thing,” Jim brandished his flint blade. Silver rubbed his chin, curious. “They were right all along. You are a monster.”

Silver laughed.

“It be your Pa that bargained you away, lad!” He spread his hands, jubilant. “And how foolish your fears be, for come here…” He opened his arms. “…and you can live the sights no two-leg has ever seen. The mysteries I can show you, lad. The things ye could see. Why, I know of the stars, of the seas, I do. You’ll live like nothin’ before, and will fear nothin’ as well.”

"Stop it," Jim recoiled, trying to pull his feet back, back toward the village, but he was failing. An ache cracked in his chest as if his heart was splitting open, and all his thoughts, his desires, his dreams of salt air and horizons never-ending, were spilling out of him, in his tears, in the tension falling from his body like scales. As if the wily old shark could see it all, which of course, he could.

“Should I?” came the sweet reply, and Jim, of course, was by the rocks now, the water cooler around his bare feet, and Silver, his hands outstretched, finding the blushing curves of Jim's face, and was pulling him close. "Why, once upon a time, lad, I knew what men desired – we did trade, back in the days when we were worshipped, as we should still be today, mark me. But look at ye…" His chuckles became a succession of clicking, and _that_ night rose so harsh and warm in Jim's recollection he let out an involuntary gasp. The water was up to his chest, his shirt bagging and swollen around him, and his hips were closed against Silver's frilled belt, the beginning of his tail and fins, swaying dangerously in the shallows. "As if I don't know desire when I see it. It was our currency, lad, as much as fish and gold. And yet, you, my lad. You _yearn,_ don’t ye, poor lamb.”

Jim was silent, now, just listening, his eyelids fluttering with the rollover of the tide and the roll of their shared breath, close between their parted lips, and Jim was aware there was no bank to rest his feet, that his toes were raking along the shells and shrapnel, lifting off altogether.

The violence of the previous days, the botching of their promises, the hope and fear of Smollett’s commission floated away as _Jim_ floated, breathless against Silver’s chest, although now the waves were reaching his neck, licking away at his open mouth, and he gagged, spitting water, salt a foul spoil in his throat.

There was a _clicking_. A low, triumphant staccato and Jim woke, his eyes wide, and the creature was smiling with all his teeth, and the bay was far, far behind him.

Beneath his feet, the monstrous tail swayed, and the scales blackened like ink, the silver eaten away to reveal poisonous strips of red. Jim saw the merge of colour, black ocean and red tide. In the reflection of Silver’s fisheyes, he saw his hair, tawny gold, wet upon his shoulders.

The flint flashed against the sun, slashing blood from the creature’s chest, who mewled, writhing his tail, and Jim shook himself free. The mountains were in clear distance, the caves and the thin line of sands that led back to the bay. But the tide was high and impossibly deep. He thrashed his legs, swimming frantically, choking back on the spray, only for powerful arms to grip his waist and drag him under.

Jim struggled, the dark of the sea beneath him, and there he saw the mersharks, finally, hundreds of eyes, glaring up, and Silver, pulling him toward the pit of it. Jim braced both his feet on Silver’s upper tail, and with all the power he could muster, kicked. The mershark released, for a split winded moment, as Jim rose above the surface, gasping in air, but he was tugged beneath again, further down, until all the world began to darken in his vision and his scorching lungs became agony. His ears, compounded by the pressure, seemed to bloat and thud in his head.

Silver paused, turned the boy in his arms, as Jim opened his mouth in an instinctive chance for air, only for water to fill his body like a deathly anchor, but there were lips on his own, breathing air in his lungs, pulling the water from his chest and replacing it with borrowed breath. Jim gagged, only for Silver to do it again, and Jim had the sense – the awful, damned sense! – that Silver didn’t wish for a dead thing to call a prize.

But it was more. Of course, it _was._ The action was tender. The hand through his hair was gentle. But beneath the water, he couldn’t hear the song, so he thought instead, thought of the tail and the slowing of the scarred side.

Silver, content Jim was alive, began to descend, only for Jim’s hand to stall him, and Jim pulled him up, no longer fighting, and stared long at the age-old creature, who peered, bemusedly, back.

Jim kissed him.

The stirring tail swung beneath them as Silver began to cluck in pleasure, his tongue and teeth vibrating against Jim’s own. The sensation tingled Jim as he kissed further, before, with a ferocious twist, he dug his flint blade deep into the scar and dragged _up_.

The sound was indescribable. It was a scream designed for alien lungs.

Blood flowed in sinister red smoke and Jim was free.

* * *

Jim woke to the night. He saw gold and black and red in the tempest of his mind's eye.

"Jim." Garrett had not left his vigil on the rocking chair. His hand was on his brow. "You're awake, finally."

"Yes." Jim pulled the blankets towards him, laying his head back against the bed board. His bare chest and legs were marred with scratches, light lines of bleeding. "Where did they find me?"

"Passed out on the path between the bay and the village." Garrett's fingers slipped from his brow. Jim caught his hand; Garrett did not pull away. "They brought you here."

"Does Smollett know?"

"Mrs B told us to not say a word of it."

 _A wise woman_ , Jim thought.

"Garrett..." Jim's lungs burned with the salt of the rancid water, and he hid his face in the crook of Garrett's arm. "I saw the creature that killed my father."

"Jim..." Garrett's tone was gentle, careful. "It's over now."

There was so much more to say. Jim knew that, but he didn't know how to start, so instead, he closed his eyes and shook his head, feeling the warm, dry surface of Garrett’s skin.

* * *

The bay was older, older than the elders, older than anything Jim knew.

There were the poor houses, the smoking chimney pots, the crooked old inn where the elders sat, fossiled in pipe smoke and old stories.

The sea groaned beneath the Navy vessel and Jim knew he would not return.

Mrs B, a whirlwind of grey, shambled across the shore. For a long time, Jim watched her, before the sea haze hid her from sight.

"To work," Samuel Arrow was dry and severe. There was no itch on his skin, no dream in his head. "Hoist the mainsail. We have a wind to catch."

The men sang broken shanties. Jim hauled the ropes that opened the skin on his palms like roses. 

In the roar of their song, Jim heard a voice. It crept under the rudder, up to the hull, and carried in the sails.

In the bitter sea spray, Jim heard it.

A _clicking._


End file.
